We are not trash!

   I recently saw the movie  "Toy Story 4" and was amazed at how well the story writers put together this movie.  It was an amazing movie I would even be willing to pay money to see again!  In the movie I caught hold of a message that I believe God had woven into the story line for us to see.

   In the movie, a new toy is created by the name of Forky.  The little girl, Bonnie, goes off to Kindergarten and while there she creates a little fork-person out of some items from the trash (Woody had collected them and put them on her table while she wasn't looking).   She takes a Popsicle stick, a Spork, some eyes, some gum and a pipe-cleaner and creates Forky.  She then writes her name his feet which were made of of Popsicle sticks.   Later on, when she is going home Woody is in the backpack with Forky and is shocked when Forky comes alive and starts talking.  This is the beginning of Woody's trials in the movie as Forky does not see himself as a toy, but instead sees himself only as trash and tries to throw himself into any trashcan he sees.   One night, while they are on a road trip in an RV,  Forky throws himself out the back window and Woody has to go after him because he means everything to Bonnie.   He tracks down Forky who is stuck in the dirt on the side of the road.  He pulls him out and begins a long trek back to the RV park.   During their hike, Woody spends time trying to convince Forky he is NOT TRASH but a TOY.  The turning point happens when Woody tells of his own prior owner Andy who loved him and wrote his name on him.  At that moment, Forky gets it!  He no longer sees himself as TRASH but a TREASURE and wants to get back to Bonnie.

    How much is our life in Christ like that of Woody and/or Forky.  How many times do we have people in our lives like Forky who don't see themselves as anything more than trash and throw themselves into the world's trashcan of drugs, alcohol, porn, hate, self-hatred, bad-relationships, crappy-jobs with no future, self-destruction and so much more.  We tell them that they are so much more than that to God.   God has written his name on them and he has written our names into the palms of his hands.


God writes in Isaiah 49:16:

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast    and have no compassion on the child she has borne? 

   I will not forget you!  

 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands"

    It is not really until we open up and tell our story to them that they get it.  Like Forky coming to an understanding of who he is when Woody tells his story of Andy and how it impacted his life and changed him so also we connect to others with the Gospel when we share with them how God's love  impacted us.  We are transformed in Baptism to being God's children and are marked forever as his own and nothing can change that!

   Finally, it is worth nothing that our attitude towards others should be the same as Woody's who recklessly loves Forky and throws himself out of the window to go after him because Forky means so much to Bonnie.  We too must recklessly love others and reach out to them because they mean so much to God also.  Because God loves them, we love them too.   Because God searches for them (Bonnie in the movie panics every time she cannot find Forky), we search for them too.

John  writes in 1 John 4:19:

    We love because he first loved us!

Size does NOT matter!

    The phrase "Size does not matter!" appears often in many different areas of conversation.  Some of which we will not go into for this article.   It is a human condition to compare ourselves to others.  We do it on Facebook, we do it the car, at work, at the gym.  Heck we even do it at church too!

    Jesus addressed this issue when he was at a dinner party of a noted Teacher of the Law.  While he was there a woman of bad reputation (probably the prostitute he saved from stoning) came in and washed Jesus' feet with her tears, dried them with her hair and poured expensive perfume on them.   The host took offense to it and thought that if Jesus' was a true prophet he would know this woman was unworthy of being in his presence.   Jesus tells him this parable

    "There were 2 men who owed the King money.  One owed him 5 denari (a weeks wage) and another 500 denari (2 years wages).  Both of them did not have the ability to pay him back and so the King had mercy on them and cancelled their debt.   Who of the two men do you think loved the King more?".   The host replied, "I guess the man who had the larger debt!".

    I am a numbers person.  I love numbers.  When I read this parable I can't help but visualize the two debts sitting on a table.   One stack of 5 verses 100 stacks of 5 (arranged in a 10x10 square none the less!).   The problem is when we do this we miss the most important part of the parable.   Jesus said, "Both of them did not have the ability to pay him back".   Both were flat broke without a penny to their name.  In this parable Jesus illustrates that some people are "less sinful than others".   There are "good people" out there.  We often get confronted with that by unbelievers who love to point to very good and well-meaning people out there.   In the credit-card-of-life some people live very responsible lives for the most part.   They don't run up huge debts and live very reasonable lives.   While others run off to Vegas and go on a betting streak!   But in the end, BOTH have no means to pay it off.

     All too often we try to impress on non-believers that their debt to God is this HUGE mountain of debt and we are a bit put off when they seem to shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't think I am a bad person!  I am not as bad as Hitler!".   They see themselves as the person with the 5 denari debt and it not being that big of a deal.  The real issue is not the size of the debt but the total lack of income to pay for the debt no matter how small it is.  For some, they think they can "work the debt off" with their good works.   The problem with this idea is that there is no "over time credit" in God's economy.

    To illustrate this imagine you work for a small company and you get paid $100K per year.   A sign at the door reads:

All employees must be at their desks at no later than 8AM and go home no sooner than 5PM with lunch from 12:00 to 1:00 , Monday-Friday.  

    One day you make a mistake that costs the owner $20K.   You go to the owner and say, "To work off the $20K I will be at work from 8-5 Monday thru Friday and only take 1 hour for lunch!".  The owner would point to the sign and say, "That won't pay it off!  That's what I require all my workers to do!"  He then tells you "Since you lost 20% of your salary I am going to require you to work 20% MORE!  You will work on Saturday from 8-5 with 1 hour for lunch for the entire next year!"

    But in God's world the sign doesn't read: "Be holy 40 hours a week!", instead it reads "Be holy!" (24/7).  There is no overtime in God's business.   There is no extra we can do.   It's what God already requires us to be, so when we give to the poor, that is what God expects of us anyway.   Even if we try to use our money or even our very bodies as "guilt offerings" we accomplish nothing because all our money and even our bodies is HIS!  He owns everything and using them to pay off the debt is like you trying to use the company credit card to pay off your debt.

    Instead, God asks us to trust him that he loves us and has take care of it all.   But to get there we must first admit we are flat broke and have nothing to offer of our own.  Like those 2 men in Jesus' parable who trust showing themselves in front of the King and telling him they are flat broke.   We must trust our loving and merciful Father who has already paid the full amount because he is the only one with the resources to cancel the debt.  Jesus declaration on the cross of "IT IS FINISHED!" is his stamping on our debt "PAID IN FULL".